Monday, 1 May 2017

Open Thread

20 comments:

Kirsty Lang made some strange comments on Front Row last night about how the referendum had revealed that we were a divided nation 'by education'. We are a 'diverse' nation and we have a range of abilities and of course every election reveals that we are 'divided', (unless Labour win?). Was she re-running the BBC line that the thick voted for Brexit?

The rest of the item on funding theatre had some familiar themes, basically the public should be made to pay for the art that the public doesn't want to pay to see, most likely because the 'art' shows the contempt that the artist has for the public - very BBC!

In other matters Simon Fanshawe gets to review the papers, (again), on Breakfast Saturday morning. "Let's hope the fascists don't win", he says, with implied agreement all around.

Simon Fanshawe has been a BBC Breakfast regular for more years than anyone else, other than former FA boss (and former BBC reporter) David Davies.

He used the first paper review this morning to argue that the latest Muslim terror suspect (the latest alleged Westminster attacker) may have got "started on this path" because of "that ship that got captured...when there was a group of people tried to take a load of stuff to Gaza" - the "trauma that may or may not have put him on this route". (Would viewers know that it wasn't Israel who "captured" that ship?"). But what he thought was "interesting" about this was the people who tipped off the police were his Muslim family. "And I think it is often painted that these people are kind of crazy, and all Muslims are somehow off on the warpath. But clearly here's a very conscientious family..."

He then (being a Labour supporter and a gay rights activist perhaps) denounced a Conservative politician for, apparently, saying something negative about homosexuality.

In the second paper review we got the French bit. "Let's hope that the fascists don't win, if I may call them that. 'The far-right' let's call them. No response from the BBC presenters, but straight onto Maxine Peake and how "absolutely fantastic she is".

Exact same narrative as Nick Robinson introduced and was carried forward (at times virtually verbatim) by all correspondents reporting from polling stations, that Brexit voters were the uneducated, angry 'Left Behind'.

There was no memo or editorial directive that told Kirsty Young to say that. It happened naturally because she thinks the same thing as the rest of them. Groupthink? What groupthink?

"We were always going to end up paying something into the EU to leave due to our ongoing commitments to various projects." ...

I agree with your general point, but by always playing up the "divorce bill", which has now been hysterically inflated to 100 billion, the RemainBBC seek to distract us from basic reality (actually a common BBC trick!).

What I'm getting at here is:1. If I leave a club, I give notice and then I leave. I stop paying my subs and I no longer enjoy the facilities of the club. End of story. HoL has also noted this. I do not pay to leave.2. If you pay someone, then you get something in return. I can't think of any walk of life where I willingly pay something for nothing. So even if we pay 100 billion, then what is offered in return? This is what a worthwhile journalist should be asking.

According to WATO's analysis the EU would appear to be a hugely sucessful, seamlessly united and in all respects superior entity compared to the ramshackle, dysfunctional UK.

Nary a mention of France being in its second year of a state of emergency...or Germany facing a huge, huge bill for looking after its one million, mostly unemployable illegal migrants, let in by Mama "Mad" Merkel...or that Hungary and Poland's governments are distinctly out of synch with the EU ideology...or that the EU is ferrying in hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants...or that 3 million EU citizens live here and are dependent on our economy for their wages and higher living standard.

Why can't WATO inject a bit of balance? Because they are all, every last one of them, rabid Remainers.

Sir Christopher Meyer tweeted something interesting a few hours ago, relevant to that WATO (and the BBC): "I voted Remain. But I am revolted by the Remoaners' assumption that Juncker's leak was a true and unbiased account of his dinner with PM."

Remember that in the run up to the US election Rosie O'Donnell was a great favourite of the BBC - Newsnight had a long interview with her, despite the fact she is virtually unknown over here and holds no office in the USA. I think she was supposed to be some sort of symbol of America's pro-Hillary feisty feminism...a role model for women.

Some role model, if her daughter's sad account is to be believed.

Since Rosie O'Donnell called for a coup (in a serious way, not a funny way) to stop Trump becoming President she appears to have been dropped by the BBC. Wonder if they'll even cover this story?

Rosie O'Donnell is a 9/11 Truther. No wonder the younger Beeboids loved her (Upper management calmer heads are distinctly separate from the rank-and-file on this and other important issues, e.g. Israel and not coincidentally Cobyn). Her proof that 9/11 was an inside job is that it was "the first time in history that fire ever melted steel."

The kind of ideology-over-science that is far too typical at the BBC. I would be willing to bet her absence from the BBC airwaves is just one of those things and nothing to do with her call for a military coup, as the current vicious Leftoid celebrity pet of the BBC is Maxine Peake, who has called for a military coup to install Corbyn.

Today, Sainsbury's have reported a drop in profits. The spokesman from the company said that they had lost market share to Aldi and Lidl, and that trading conditions were more competitive than in preceding yeras . He said that food related product purchases had in fact become progressively cheaper over the last few years.

The 5Live business news at around 9-30 reported that 'Sainsbury's had seen a fall in profits due to uncertainty around Brexit'. More Fake News!

Usually the BBC's inaccurate and tendentious Reality Checks have a "claim" and a "verdict" on the claim (even though often the verdict bares little relation to the original claim, such are the ways of the BBC).

But oddly, when it comes to the latest Reality Check which looks at a claim from their mates at the FT (that the EU is presenting us with a 100 billion Euro bill) there is no verdict! How strange...

It seems that Reality Check is just there now for general propaganda. Basically the message is that the EU can be trusted to put forward a reasonable claim and it is perfectly reasonable to deny us a share of assets while make us pay for a share of liabilities.

Heaven forfend that the BBC would ever criticise the FT. The FT, like the IFS, Stonewall, Greenpeace, Royal College of Nursing, YouGov, to name a few others, are simply organisations that are never to be criticised.

It’s Time New York Times CEO Mark Thompson Told the Truth About this Sex Scandal

Savilegate is back. Or at least Miles Goslett is trying to resurrect it. Key bit:

The head of this inquiry, Nick Pollard, later rang me and, in a conversation which I taped, admitted he had excluded key evidence about Thompson from his report.Pollard therefore alleged that Thompson had probably known about the entire affair before he left the BBC – and before he began at the Times.

Because of their anti-Trump lies and propaganda, the NY Times has apparently seen a huge increase in subscriptions recently. So I doubt Thompson will be affected by any of this.